In the spirit of all things food (which have sparked my interest more and more of late), I wanted to share with you a web-site that a friend of mine found recently: Foodzie. Essentially, it’s Etsy for food. It’s an on-line market-place for small (and generally, indie) vendors and artisans to sell their edibles. Sauces, spreads, jams, oils, vinegar, nuts, cheeses, chocolate, candy — it’s a treasure trove of off-the-beaten-path foodstuffs! I have yet to order anything from them, but here are a few of the things I’ve found which are going on my to-eat list:

Cinnamon Basil Tea Cookies from the Botanical Bakery.

Lavender Hanahbells Thimble Cheese from the Shy Brothers Farm. I’m such a sucker for Lavender!

Grenache Wine Vinegar from Allure Estates.

Scenic City Sizzle, Grilling Pepper from Alchemy Spice Company. I’m imagining this getting slathered all over a grilled halibut. Whoa.

Mint Chip Macaroons from Emmy’s Organics. The “chips” are not semi-sweet or even bitter-sweet chocolate chips, but raw cocoa nibs sprinkled throughout. I love chocolate in its regularly consumable forms, but there’s something so totally pure and perfect about nibs, they’re so dark and bitter but with their own natural sweetness and oiliness that fills your mouth with the smallest amount.

Again, the main point of this post is the food porn. It’s not an original recipe so I won’t re-post it, but this is a vanilla bean panna cotta which I made in the new large silicon muffin-pan (a little unconventional, perhaps, but it worked). The white chocolate “lace” was made the same way as it was for the shortcake, and then I just stuck it in the panna cotta. Ordinarily I might not recommend mixing these textures, but the white chocolate is so soft that it melts while you eat, and therefore isn’t too hard for the panna cotta. Oh yeah, and then I just threw some blackberries on the side. Next time I think I’ll try making a coulis, though: I didn’t fancy the blackberry seeds getting involved in my panna cotta.

Photos of my Easter Sunday dessert — flourless chocolate cake with powdered sugar and fresh berries — may be forthcoming, if they came out well on my ma’s camera.